April 19, 1775 — what a day! Yet 234 years later, the love of individual liberty that drove the patriots of Middlesex County to war seems lost amidst news of the marathon and of the Red Sox game.
We all know it took the colonies over a year to declare their collective independence. Often newspapers publish the Declaration of Independence on its anniversary. Yet, little is published the other days of the year about the principles and virtues absolutely necessary to preserve the advantages of liberty, and to maintain a free government. And so slowly, we lose both.
The slide down the slope toward tyranny can be seen in the headlong rush of a small minority of communities in Essex County and around the state to pass ordinances and bylaws punishing public consumption of cannabis without a vote of the people.
Those advocating for local laws were at the forefront of the opposition to Question 2 and push them upon the advice of Martha Coakley, the state's attorney general. Days before Question 2's effective date, she published a model law that recriminalized possession accompanied by consumption in "public." She has since backed off that proposal.
As she is eyeing the next opening in the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, perhaps Coakley realized this might alienate a very large segment of the public — like those 65 percent of us who voted for liberty when voting for Question 2.
Contrary to rumors, Question 2 did not legalize cannabis possession and use. It reduced the punishment to a $100 civil fine and additional provisions for those under 18 years of age. It also made it illegal to have "cannabinoids or cannibinoid metabolites" in the human body.
Those pushing local laws to punish public consumption seek the power to do so whether or not that consumption actually causes a public disturbance or the likelihood of injury to another. These twin concepts are at the core of just government.
These local efforts and legislation filed on Beacon Hill to gut Question 2, distract attention from the need for our politicians to awaken to the constitutional error of many current laws — laws that impose a majority of the legislators' view of morality or charity rather than the consensus that lies at the heart of the consent of the governed.
In the case of cannabis, adherence to the constitutions requires that cannabis cultivation be treated like corn, and distribution of its psychoactive products like alcoholic beverages. (Although we know that when used for its psychoactive effects, it is not close to being as hazardous as alcohol.)
This would recreate a hemp industry destroyed by prohibition — an industry recognized in international law and that provides the resource for tens of thousands of products in place of petrochemicals and trees. This would restore naturally produced cannabis drugs to the pharmacopoeia, so that doctors could prescribe what a Federal Administrative Law judge described as the "safest therapeutically active substance known."
It would also advance research into cannabis-derived medicines and their applications, research at which Massachusetts should be an international leader. Most importantly, regulation advances individual liberty.
How long will our politicians remain blind to this fact and the fact that the same amount of revenue in excise taxes as collected from the alcoholic beverage industry and the income taxes of the cultivators, wholesalers, retailers and their employees, awaits? How long will we continue electing politicians who do not appreciate the advantages of liberty?
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Criminal defense attorney Steve Epstein resides in Georgetown and is a founder of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition.
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